Over 95% of California Faculty Association members — which include lecturers, tenured faculty, coaches, counselors and librarians across the Cal State university system — have voted to authorize a strike if necessary, union leaders announced Monday.
That would impact Sacramento State, where the resident CFA chapter has been holding solidarity pickets with student groups for the past few weeks. It’s an extension of the support faculty showed students when they rallied against a series of 6% tuition increases over the next five years.
CFA Sacramento State chapter president Anne Luna said the vote to strike is in service of creating working conditions where faculty can better serve students.
“We can only ensure the continued success of our students if we are able to retain our excellent faculty with livable wages, respectful paid parental leave, workload protections, and safety on campus,” Luna told CapRadio in a statement. “We are fighting to save the CSU, to build a better, safer, accessible, more just public higher educational system.”
Union contract asks include greater pay equity, expanded parental support and more
As for current progress on the union’s demands, CFA president Charles Toombs said during a Monday press conference, “almost all of the points are big areas of disagreement.”
Those include:
- Pay equity: A 12% across-the-board salary increase and a rising salary floor
- Inclusion of anti-racism and social justice contract articles: Expanded gender-inclusive bathroom availability, setting conditions for faculty members who must meet with police and more
- Expanded parental support: More lactation rooms, a semester off for new parents
- Better workload balance: Smaller class sizes, among other things
Pay, particularly, has been a flashpoint, especially as the CSU system faces a budget shortfall of $1.5 billion that prompted its trustees to approve tuition increases in forthcoming years. New CSU chancellor Mildred Garcia’s compensation package will be close to $1 million — more than her predecessor, Joseph Castro, who received a $400,000 salary and housing allowance even a year after his resignation.
Meanwhile, “it is unconscionable that there are faculty teaching five classes per semester and earning only $55,000 a year!” Luna wrote in her statement — a reference to lecturers’ pay schedule, who make up around 60% of CSU teaching staff while starting at an annual base pay of $54,360.
Lecturers, too, make up the bulk of Sacramento State teaching staff. As of fall 2023, the university has over 1,000 lecturers, and only 29.5% of its 1,867 faculty members are tenured.
Still, interim CSU chancellor Jolene Koester said in a letter to union members earlier this summer that the 12% across-the-board salary increase was “unreasonable” and would “grossly undermine the CSU’s fiscal stability.”
“If the CSU were to agree to CFA’s demands, each of our universities would be forced to make difficult and painful decisions regarding how to reallocate their already limited financial resources to meet our rapidly increasing costs of operation, 75% of which are currently dedicated to personnel,” Koester wrote.
The union points to an analysis it released in early October to contest that assessment, arguing that the university’s “significant annual operating cash surpluses” can be used to fulfill faculty’s demand without accessing CSU reserves.
Potential strike timeline and next steps
CSU spokesperson Hazel Kelly said in a statement to Mission Local that the results of the vote weren’t unexpected. She added that it also doesn’t guarantee a strike.
“The CSU remains committed to the collective bargaining process and reaching a negotiated agreement with the CFA as we have done with five of our other employee unions in recent weeks,” she said.
The union’s negotiations have been at an impasse with the university system since late August, meaning they’ve stalled due to limited progress. Currently, an independent fact-finder is compiling a report on the feasibility of each side’s bargaining proposals.
Once that report is complete, which Toombs said could “take several weeks,” there is a 10-day period after it is shared with CFA and CSU management. After that period is up, the union — whose current contract has a no-strike clause — is legally allowed to strike.
The scope and duration of strike the CFA might take is still unclear. Kevin Wehr, the bargaining team chair from and a sociology professor at Sac State, said at the press conference that the union will call a strike when it is “strategic” to do so — meaning it won’t happen, for example, when everyone is on winter break.
“Our ultimate goal would be to avert a strike,” he said. “I would love it if management saw the 95% number and said, ‘Wow, okay, the faculty are serious. We better get serious too.’”
While the union has filed unfair labor practice charges against CSU, those were around issues in the bargaining process, like information sharing or unilaterally changing working conditions, so “none of them are at a point where we could actually use them to go on strike,” Wehr added.
Conversely, last year’s sizable UC academic worker strike, which impacted the Sacramento area by way of UC Davis, was an unfair labor practice strike. If CFA were to strike, it would be classified under an “economic strike”, according to the National Labor Relations Board.
But he said a strike — if implemented — would be done “out of love.”
“We're striking out of a commitment to students and them having the best resources available to them in the classroom and all over campus, in the library, in the mental health counseling centers,” he said.
If that point is reached, it could be the first time faculty have withheld labor across the system, Toombs added during the press conference.
While CFA membership voted in favor of calling a strike in 2015 during prior contract negotiations, CSU management and the union were able to come to an agreement at the bargaining table, averting a strike. Union membership also voted in favor of two one-day walkouts, at Cal State East Bay and Cal State Dominguez Hills, as a leverage tactic during negotiations in 2011.
In the meantime, the CFA said in a press release Monday it plans to bring its demands and hold a solidarity rally in Long Beach Nov. 7 at the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting.
Luna said some members of the Sac State CFA chapter will be at the rally, and that they are also organizing with the Sacramento Central Labor Council and in solidarity with Sac State Teamsters, who are also in mediation for a fair contract. Over 94% of trades workers across the CSU similarly voted in favor of calling a strike if necessary earlier this month.
On campus, chapter members will be holding “strike schools” to help educate students about the potential impact of a strike and organize CFA members to be strike-ready.
“We are also planning teach-ins to engage students and community members who want to join us in solidarity on the picket line,” Luna said.
Wehr added that if a strike is called, he’ll invite his students to the picket line.
“I don’t think they’re going to be in a classroom,” he said.